Sun Yuzhi's plan to gather a large number of merchant ships and then carry out escort operations will naturally be obtained by hidden intelligence officers, and for the sake of high intelligence remuneration, there will be things that betray the interests of the country in any era, not to mention the unclear relationship between kingdoms like Europe, sometimes it is not clear whether they have betrayed their own country, and most of the intelligence personnel are still mixed races of various countries. Therefore, the plan that is not said is the most secret, once the plan is announced, unless it has strong strength, it may not be a loophole, and a small Mingdao force like Sun Yuzhi will directly announce this escort plan, which will definitely attract great attention from all sides, and study whether it is worth robbing once.

Sun Yuzhi's fleet escorted more than 200 merchant ships on the west coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean unhurriedly, and some sporadic pirate ships continued to appear around, these pirate ships were like African hyenas staring at their prey, always ready to pounce on them and take away their prey, but the merchant ships of this era have a certain ability to defend themselves, and the pirates will also consider the cost and benefit, and they still dare not do it without a certain certainty.

Things changed a little when the fleet sailed to Lüderitz, Namibia, and suddenly there were more corsair ships, and it seemed to be somewhat organized. Sun Yuzhi ordered the fleet to prepare in order to deal with the sudden attack of the pirates, seeing that the pirate ships are all small boats, such small boats for mortars, the hit rate is a little low, the target is too small, if it is a waste to cover it with mortars, the cannon is not worth using at all, and now the most convenient thing is the hand-cranked machine gun, so Sun Yuzhi asked the standard-bearer to give the order to use the hand-cranked machine gun.

Just when the sailors on the ship finished their lunch and were a little sleepy, the nearly two hundred pirate ships around suddenly began to attack, and the Ming Navy, which had already been prepared, naturally would not make the mistake of sleeping, although it was a little sleepy during this time period, but knowing that there were countless pirates around him, who would dare to be careless. The three warships in front of the row formed a fan-shaped fire coverage area, sailing with merchant ships, followed by four warships, covering the rear of the rear in an arc formation.

Trying to rush to the fleet from all directions at the same time, but unfortunately, as long as you enter within half a mile, you will be ruthlessly hit by hand-cranked machine guns, these wooden pirate ships in front of hand-cranked machine guns, especially within half a mile distance, basically do not have much resistance, but after all, there are more pirate ships, and occasionally there will be fish that slip through the net, but they are more miserable, the warships hidden in the merchant fleet also have machine guns, and the pirates who fell into the water are floating live targets, and they are slowly killed by the soldiers.

Not without accidents, a dozen or so merchant ships broke down and were anchored at sea and unable to navigate soon after the engagement. Sun Yuzhi was not in a hurry, but just used the flag to tell them not to be nervous, there would be warships to protect them, let them see if they could be repaired, but secretly firmly wrote down the signs of these merchant ships, and played another kind of related flag, telling the warships not to approach these merchant ships. Sure enough, it didn't take long for the merchant ships to signal them to approach the tow, and the warships replied to tell them that the war was now tight and that they would wait a while.

Although there are a large number of pirate ships, they are still small ships after all, and they quickly lose their ability to resist under the machine gun strikes of the Ming army, and the speed of retreat is the same as the sudden attack, but the machine guns of the Ming army are not only half a mile range, they can still smash their small pirate ships within a mile, and in the end there are no more than fifty pirates that can escape, and the rest have become food for Atlantic sharks.

After breaking up the pirate team, the fleet continued to move forward, and the ships that broke down also regained their ability to move normally under the tow of other merchant ships, Sun Yu looked at these merchant ships and didn't say much. After several days of driving, there were no pirate ships watching nearby, I don't know if they were frightened or completely disabled, in short, they disappeared, and the people on the merchant ship gradually returned to their normal lives.

After three or four days of sailing, the caravan is about to approach the next port, which is a natural excellent harbor - Walvis Bay Harbor, where ships sailing along the coastline will take a rest, and the merchant ships that sail for more than a week do not want to be like the soldiers of the warships, and try not to treat themselves badly when they can rest, and at the request of the captains of some merchant ships, Sun Yuzhi also promised them to rest for a day near the port, so that the soldiers could also rest.

Looking at the somewhat slackness of the people on the merchant ship, Sun Yuzhi did not let go of the hanging heart at all, the one who traveled a hundred miles was half ninety, Sun Yuzhi always remembered this sentence, after the people of the merchant ship left, Sun Yuzhi directly issued a first-class alert order to the escort warship, requiring the soldiers to immediately enter combat preparations, just a feeling of participating in the battle, and ordered a group of three small clippers to immediately warn the Xiao Hailong combined fleet that came behind, so that they could also prepare for battle.

Sun Yuzhi's intuition was indeed right, some of the pirates from the past few days were sent by them. The navies of England, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and other countries are ready, and the huge fleet is ready to deal a fatal blow to the combined fleets of the Ming Dynasty, Portugal, and Spain. Just as they were jointly discussing how to open the passage occupied by the combined fleet, Sun Yuzhi's escort plan was released, so they made a plan that would be counted. The first is to arrange pirates to rob and see how strong Sun Yuzhi's fleet is, if it can succeed, the next step is to go straight to Ming Island and pull out this nail. If you can't succeed, after intercepting halfway and destroying Sun Yuzhi's fleet, you will seize Ming Island and jam the throat of this sea route, even if you negotiate with the combined fleet, you will have the upper hand. If they can attract the Ming and their combined fleet to the Atlantic and wipe them out, that would be the best outcome.

Sun Yuzhi still doesn't know much about the scale of the European fleet, he thinks that in addition to some pirates, doing more is some small-scale warship robbery, which hurts them, and he won't dare to come out in the future, the original nearly 200 warships of the combined fleet such as England Sun Yuzhi have eaten them, and now Sun Yuzhi doesn't take them seriously at all. However, not being afraid is not afraid, and the necessary prudence is still necessary, this is the quality that every general must have, and Sun Yuzhi, who has been educated in a military academy, is a top talent in this regard, and he understands this truth even more.

Sun's instincts and prudence still worked, and when England appeared with the Allied fleet, all the battle preparations were ready. Although he was ready to meet the enemy, he still frightened Sun Yuzhi, the size of the fleet of the British coalition was too large, and there were nearly 500 warships of all sizes, and according to preliminary observations, there were more than 300 warships with a displacement of more than 1,200 tons, especially the warships flying the Dutch flag, which not only had a large displacement, but also had the largest number.

Sun Yuzhi felt that today's battle was not easy to fight, his own escort fleet could not be stopped no matter what, the key was that there were too many opponents, and if they were fenced and fired inside, it would definitely be a tragedy. Retreat was the only option, Sun Yuzhi did not hesitate to give the order to retreat, the warship stepped forward to protect the tail of the merchant fleet, and the merchant ship began to turn and retreat.

At the critical moment, there was an accident, and when turning, there was another collision accident, and Sun Yuzhi saw that several merchant ships deliberately crashed into other merchant ships that were turning, and there were faint signs of preparing to jump into the gang. Secretly sneered, it seems that the spies in this fleet are about to attack, when the break continues, there will be trouble, as soon as the signal flag waves, there will be warships directly up with cannons to fire at close range, although the tonnage of the merchant ship is larger, but its protection ability can not be compared with the warship, suddenly within half an hour, about ten Sun Yuzhi judged that the spy merchant ships immediately turned into pieces, and the other merchant ships were a little surprised, but they were quickly persuaded by the nearby Portuguese merchant ships, and then quickly followed the fleet to turn and retreat, who dared to violate the order at this time, It is estimated that the end will be crushed by cannons, and saving life is the most important thing, and no one dares to reason with the warship at this time.

The speed of the merchant ships is not comparable to the speed of the warships, when the merchant fleet has completed the turn, the English, Dutch and other allied fleets have entered the range of the 1,700-yard English fleet, but also entered the mortar firing range of Sun Yuzhi's fleet, the cannon is a sharp weapon, and now I don't want to use it at this time, so I use hand-cranked machine guns to shoot at them, creating a certain obstacle for them to advance.